NEW DELHI -- The ongoing trend toward increased ethane
cracking is offering niche petrochemical producers the
opportunity to fill the propylene gap via on-purpose
technologies, an official with KBR said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the International Refining and Petrochemical Conference (IRPC),
Sourabh Mukherjee said North American shale gas was a
game changer with a huge amount of global
interest.

At least seven
mega-projects were awarded in the past year, he said, and the
trend for new plants or revamps is expected to continue,
especially with the US price ratios of gas to crude oil at
historic lows.

There are going to be a lot more ethane crackers, so
we dont see a lot of propylene produced in the
foreseeable future from ethylene plants, said Mr.
Mukherjee, head of KBRs basic engineering design team in
India.

That paints a very interesting scenario for how to
fill the yearly propylene gap of 42 million metric
tons.

One option is propylene recovered as a by-product from
naphtha crackers and refineries, both of which are common in
the Asia-Pacific region.

An increasingly popular option, however, is niche catalytic
processes, such as on-purpose propylene technologies.

This gives a huge opportunity for niche producers to
come up with solutions to meet huge propylene demand
worldwide, he said. Thats where we introduce our technology.

I think thatthe real niche for Propylene are the Gas to Propylene Process (Lurgi) and GTO Gas to Olephins (UOP) It is quite unlikely that Propane and Oil will decouple.Amotherattractive Niche is Butylene ande Ethylene Methatesis using cheap Ethylene from Ethane, and Surplus Butene 2 fromb Refineries